THE STORY

In any worship gathering, the faithful listen attentively to The Story.  Within Christianity, on any given weekend, there are pre-assigned, scheduled readings from the scriptures which listeners from Lisbon to Lyons to Los Angeles hear in their native tongue. The practice of the Lectionary, traceable to the early church, seems to have been inherited from Judaism, as one-year and three-year cycles occur in both Christianity and Judaism.

And then there is our own Lectionary. Yours and mine.  In the cycle of your life you hear The Story – The SAME Story – every Thanksgiving from Uncle Pete or every Christmas from Mom.  In fact, The Story extends to your college roommate, your favorite neighbor, and even your spouse. At the doorstep of each of their homes you preconfigure it… when it will be told, who will laugh, who will be embarrassed, and how many sentences you (or another family member or friend) will be able to finish before the Storyteller can. 

Did you ever wonder why The Stories of our lives, or The Lectionary of our faith, never changes?  Perhaps it is because its stability, and its sameness, and its word-for-word predictability, is an anchor to our life.  So why do we receive it differently sometimes?  Why, sometimes, do we stop and think about a word, or a phrase, as it strikes us as though we have never heard it before? 

The Story hasn’t changed.  We have. 

You are not the same person as you were in 1995 at Aunt Helen’s… and if you don’t believe that, take a look at that family photo album from Easter that year.  Is that really you? 

Yet there is a treasure in this phenomenon. 

Consider how you can grow, and learn, and find yet another aspect of the “you” you so diligently seek, through a different sort of attentiveness to The Stories of your life.

Allow The Story to minister to you. Open your heart to find what The Story has to say to you this time, this day. Commit The Story to memory... taking special note of its highlights, and connect those highlights to the values held by The Storyteller. Know that someday you will tell that Story to others, and that what you have learned from it will be passed on.

Consider the lyrics to Neil Diamond’s famous song “The Story of My Life.”  Whether The Storyteller is Jesus, or Moses, or Mohammed, or Buddha, or Uncle Charlie… and whether you are in a pew or on a bench or a prayer cushion or a dining room chair, it is your involvement in The Story which will define its significance. 

“The story of my life is very plain to read.

It starts the day you came, and ends the day you leave.

The story of my life begins and ends with you.

The names are still the same, and the story's still the truth.

You're the story of my life, and every word is true.

Each chapter sings your name… Each page begins with you.”

As I approach the next opportunity to hear The Story, I hope I can see it differently.  Whether it’s a scripture passage I’ve heard 100 times, or a joke or misadventure whose ending I could recite, I hope that, rather than allowing my attention to veer off, I’ll let it speak to me.  I hope I’ll see The Storyteller in a new light.  I hope I’ll let it show me something about myself I didn’t know.  And most importantly, I hope I’ll commit it to memory in a way that will ensure I can someday become The Storyteller, and can pass it on as The Story I knew needed to be told, and told, and told.